SINGAPORE – A senior claims manager at an insurance firm cheated her company out of nearly $800,000 over a span of five years, from 2015 to 2020.

She used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle, including her travels overseas and dining out. She also bought luxury bags, shoes and high-end cosmetics for herself.

On April 24, Jelly Chua Li Li, 40, was sentenced to a total jail term of five years and one month.

She had earlier pleaded guilty to three counts of cheating, and two charges of dealing with the benefits of her criminal conduct.

Seven other charges were taken into consideration for sentencing. Court documents did not reveal the nature of the charges.

Chua, 40, was employed by Liberty Insurance between 2011 and 2020. Starting off as a recovery executive, she had risen to a senior claims manager by the time her offences came to light.

She could authorise payments on insurance claims filed, and her authorisation limit for approving and creating claims at the firm increased from $30,000 to $100,000 as she rose through the ranks.

Court documents said no further checks by the company would be made if Chua approved an amount that fell within her authorisation limit.

The prosecution said that from 2015 to 2020, Chua submitted 131 separate fraudulent insurance claims amounting to $790,793.03 from her company’s payment system, that were paid into her and her husband’s bank accounts.

During the same period, Chua transferred $66,869.50 of the proceeds to a bank account in Malaysia.

The prosecution said Chua had shown a high level of premeditation and planning for her crimes.

She had cheated her firm by either reusing old invoices to support her fraudulent claims, or reopening closed files to create and approve more claims, credited to herself or her husband.

For both her methods, Chua made sure to select the Giro payment option as she knew that, under Giro, remitting banks do not check if the payee’s name matches the account holder’s name.

Court documents said Chua used primarily her husband’s bank account to avoid detection, as she knew Liberty had details of her bank account.

Her act came to light in September 2020, after Chua’s colleague noticed that there were duplicates of payments made to the same law firm that provided services to Liberty.

Further checks led to the discovery of multiple duplicate and fraudulent payments made by Chua. She confessed to the fraudulent payments when confronted by the company.

The prosecution, which sought a sentence of between 68 to 74 months’ jail, said Chua was not truly remorseful as she only stopped when she was caught.

The prosecution said Liberty only managed to recover a “meagre” $17,021.21, or less than 3 per cent of the total amount Chua had cheated her firm out of.

She has not made any voluntary restitution to date.

For each count of cheating, an offender can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.

For each count of dealing with the benefits of criminal conduct, a person may be jailed for up to 10 years, fined up to $500,000, or both.